On July 15, 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent a letter to members of Congress. It named two military installations that the Pentagon was making available "for temporary use by the Department of Homeland Security to house illegal aliens." One was Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey. The other was Camp Atterbury, near Edinburgh, Indiana — 34,000 acres about forty miles south of Indianapolis, inside Indiana's 6th Congressional District.
The letter became public three days later. Jefferson Shreve, the district's congressman, put out a statement backing it:
"I support the use of Camp Atterbury as part of our national effort to detain and remove criminal aliens who entered our country illegally."
"Hoosiers voted for secure borders and safer neighborhoods last November. The influx of illegal aliens under the Biden Administration's lax border policy left many of our communities less safe."
That was the whole response. No questions about how many people, for how long, under whose supervision, at whose cost, with what medical care, or what happens if someone dies there.
Other Indiana Republicans asked. He didn't.
Here's what makes it stand out. Shreve wasn't the only Indiana Republican who got that letter.
Staff for Republican Senator Todd Young told the Indiana Capital Chronicle they had received the letter and "have asked the Trump Administration for more information about its plans for possible detention operations at Camp Atterbury."
Even the Indiana National Guard, which runs the base, was in the dark. Its spokesperson, Lauren Houck, said the Guard was "aware of the letter" and working with Pentagon and DHS officials, but had "no details other than what is in the memo" — not when detainees were expected, not how many, not where on the installation they would be housed.
So: the senator asked for information. The Guard had none. And the one member of Congress whose district actually contains the base announced his support without waiting for any.
That's the sequence. Shreve took a position on a detention operation that nobody involved could yet describe.
Then his constituents came looking for him
Through that summer, people in Johnson County kept showing up.
On August 25, 2025, more than 200 demonstrators gathered at Johnson County Park near the base, carrying signs reading "No Hoosier concentration camps" and "ICE out of Indiana."
Two weeks later, on Sunday, September 7, about 200 people rallied outside the Greenwood City Center — the building where Shreve's district office is. The Daily Journal's Noah Crenshaw was there. Their chant: "Support housing, not ICE." Their argument was that federal money should go to Indiana's affordable housing shortage rather than to detention beds.
Shreve was not in the office. The city center was closed. So protesters set up a human-sized milk carton at the corner of Main Street and Madison Avenue with the word "Missing" and a photograph of their congressman on it.
Ron Newlin of Indivisible Central Indiana explained why they picked that corner: "We wanted to stand outside of Jefferson Shreve's office, even though we know he's not here, and let the public know that many of us do not want our community used as a detention camp."
Asked for comment — including on the accusation that he only appears at "closed-door events" — Shreve's office sent this:
"I'm working in Congress to prioritize Hoosier workers ahead of undocumented immigrants. After meeting with roughly two thousand Hoosiers at public events during my constituent tour across the district this past month, I'm delivering on what the majority of my constituents told me they want: A secure border, tax relief and a lower cost of living."
Read it again and notice what isn't in it. The words "Camp Atterbury" do not appear. Neither does any answer to anything the people outside his office were asking.
This is the same posture his constituents got in May 2025, when 6th District Democrats held a "People's Town Hall" after he declined to attend — one of a run of empty-chair town halls across Indiana that spring.
"Criminal aliens" is doing a lot of work
Shreve's statement described the effort as detaining and removing "criminal aliens who entered our country illegally." That's the category he says the base is for.
It is not the category ICE has actually been filling. We have documented what this agency's year has looked like — agents shooting people, killing U.S. citizens, sweeping up people with no criminal record at all, and a round-the-clock social media dragnet that Congress paid for. None of that is a hypothetical objection to a facility. It's the operating record of the agency being handed a piece of his district.
A congressman who genuinely believed the base would only hold convicted criminals had an easy way to guarantee it: ask, in writing, before endorsing. Todd Young's office did the first part. Shreve skipped straight to the endorsement.
What we still don't know
More than a year on, the basic facts remain unpublished. As of late August 2025, no ICE detainees were being held at Camp Atterbury while state and federal officials worked out the arrangements. How many people the base would hold, for how long, and who would answer for their treatment were never spelled out publicly.
Those are exactly the questions a district's representative exists to force into the open. Shreve had the standing to demand them — the base is in his district, and he was one of the members of Congress the Pentagon's letter was addressed to. He used that standing to issue a press statement agreeing in advance.
His constituents noticed. That's what the milk carton was about.
Source
Defense letter confirms Indiana's Camp Atterbury to be used for immigrant detention — Indiana Capital Chronicle, July 18, 2025, and 'Support housing, not ICE' — Noah Crenshaw, Daily Journal, September 8, 2025. Photo: Noah Crenshaw / Daily Journal.
